The costs and benefits of governing in a multi-level system

Figures & data

Figure 1. Variation in SPD’s electoral support: comparing Land and federal results.

Source: Authors’ own calculations based on data provided by the Federal Returning Officer (https://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/).

Table 1. Descriptive statistics.

	N	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min.	Max
Vote share at next election	114	31.321	10.741	7.7	54.4
Vote share at current election	114	33.098	10.589	9.8	54.8
Left competitors	114	17.482	8.802	2.6	36.2
Left-Right position	114	−20.033	6.547	−32.2	6.2
GDP change	114	−1.645	5.463	−24	4.7
Unemployment change	114	0.021	0.894	−2	4
Timing	114	1.096	0.740	0	2
East	114	0.307	0.463	0	1

Table 2. Explaining SPD’s electoral performance at the Land level.

DV: Vote share	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Federal incumbency (Ref. Junior)
Main incumbent	1.945 (1.811)	2.283 (1.768)	9.515** (4.605)
Opposition	4.398*** (1.255)	4.849*** (1.286)	9.418*** (3.076)
Land incumbency (Ref. Junior)
Main incumbent		5.756*** (1.778)	8.859*** (2.116)
Opposition		2.070 (1.649)	4.678** (1.897)
Federal*Land incumbency
MainFed*MainLand			−7.064 (5.479)
MainFed*OppLand			−10.786** (5.055)
OppFed*MainLand			−6.411** (2.748)
OppFed*OppLand			−3.992 (2.952)
Left competitors	−0.129 (0.0990)	−0.121 (0.0968)	−0.173* (0.105)
Left-Right position	−0.164 (0.108)	−0.155 (0.101)	−0.239** (0.122)
GDP growth	−0.128 (0.101)	−0.158 (0.111)	−0.140 (0.105)
Unemployment change	0.339 (0.477)	0.0662 (0.500)	0.109 (0.457)
Timing	1.111 (0.817)	1.250 (0.904)	0.897 (1.078)
East Germany	1.076 (1.755)	0.116 (1.454)	1.220 (1.490)
Lagged vote share	0.783*** (0.0828)	0.613*** (0.110)	0.617*** (0.108)
Constant	0.243 (5.279)	2.173 (5.360)	−1.031 (5.135)
R^2	0.740	0.761	0.781
Observations	114	114	114

* p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.010.

Standard errors in parentheses.

Figure 2. Predicted SPD vote share by incumbency status at the regional (Land) level. Note: Predicted values based on Model 2.

Figure 3. Predicted SPD vote share by incumbency status at regional (Land) and federal levels. Note: Predicted values based on Model 3.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.